The dingo is among Australia’s most recognised species internationally. However, debate continues about whether dingoes are considered invasive or native species.
Dingoes arrived in Australia around 3,000–5,000 years ago, and their rapid disperal was likely facilitated by humans.
In the present day, dingoes have major negative impacts on livestock producers, especially sheep farmers. To reduce these impacts, landowners and government spend an estimated ~$30 million annually across Australia to control wild dog and dingo populations. Populations are controlled using traps, baits and shooting, along with a barrier to stop their movement into unwanted areas: the Dingo Fence.
The Dingo Fence is a wire fence made to protect from the loss of sheep for the sheep industry; it is the longest fence in the world (5,614 km). Since its construction 80 years ago, the Dingo Fence has shaped the landscape of Australia. However, perhaps unintentionally, the dingo fence has acted as a natural experiment. On the side where dingoes remain present there is more vegetation and fewer invasive species like foxes than on the side where dingoes are absent. The difference between sides of the fence is so distinct that you can even see it from space! Nearly a century later, the dingo fence has shown the importance of apex predators like dingoes in ecosystems and their benefit to native biodiversity.
To understand the debate about dingo’s role in Australia’s ecosystems, it’s useful to know its distribution. Here, we’ll explore how historical and ongoing differences in attitudes towards dingo conservation affect where and how often dingo observations are recorded in the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA).
Summarise observations
Let’s start by finding how many observations of dingoes are in the ALA and where they are.